


an unexpected visitor

by wrennette



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M, Nate lives in a museum, Post-Canon, Vampire!Nate, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 22:28:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21260651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrennette/pseuds/wrennette
Summary: There was someone in the house.





	an unexpected visitor

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I wrote anything for GK, but I had an urge to go through the Brad/Nate tag recently, and while there are some great Vampire AUs, I was a little surprised none of them had Nate as the vampire, so I decided to remedy that for Halloween. 
> 
> Nate's house is inspired by [Sir John Soane's museum](https://www.soane.org/) in London, and the [Galleria Doria Pamphilj](https://www.doriapamphilj.it/roma/) in Rome.

Waking, it took a moment for Nate to realize what he was hearing. There was someone in the house. For a moment he thought it was Walt, but quickly set that idea aside. Whoever it was, they had a beating heart pushing blood through their veins. If it had been daylight, Nate wouldn’t have worried. Most of the house, after all, was open to the public as a historic home and picture gallery. But the sun had long since set, which meant either a burglar or someone else with ill intent. 

A rather predatory smile broke across Nate’s face. 

Pulling on dark, nondescript clothing, Nate padded from the well secured apartments that had been his home for a few hundred years before his decision to move to America after the Second World War. The house below had remained open while he was living in America, but with his retirement from the US Marine Corps a few years before, he had returned to London, this home and its familiar comforts. Walt would likely return to him within the next few years; their unchanging faces became noticeable when they stayed in the same place for more than a few years.

The sound of footsteps drew Nate through the long galleries. He ignored, for the moment, the priceless treasures arrayed there. The art and antiquities he’d gathered over his long lifetime were of little interest when compared to the curiosity of a guest after dark. 

He heard the footsteps pause, and then the sound of a door opening and closing. Not one of the heavy doors out onto the street, but one of the lighter glass doors that provided access to the gardens. Nate walked past ancient sarcophagi and canvases by the Dutch Masters and a rosewood chest arrayed with Etruscan vessels.

A breeze carried in from the garden, wafting the scent of green and growing things into the hall. Fainter, there was a male musk, almost familiar. The rhythm of the heart, too, teased Nate with its familiarity.

As he stood there, listening to that pulsing beat, smelling that familiar fragrance, Nate let them pull at his memory. Heat baking down from above, and gritty sand carried on the wind. Unwashed men marinating in their own sweat. Gun lube and motor oil and gasoline. Iraq, and before that Afghanistan. Pale blue eyes in a tanned face, a shock of white-blond hair. 

“Brad,” Nate breathed, and stepped out into the night. No wonder he had thought of Walt first; his cousin had been with him throughout his service in the Marine Corps, and was inextricably linked with his memories of that time. But this wasn’t Walt.

The scent of crushed grass and damp soil rose beneath Nate’s feet as he silently traversed the moonlit garden. It took him but a few moments to track Brad to where he stood in a swathe of lawn. A bench was placed nearby, next to the paved area where a fountain flowed. 

Little about Brad Colbert had changed since Nate had last seen him. Broad shoulders and narrow hips, long, rangy limbs and blond blond hair. Unlike the Brad in Nate’s memories, the living man before him wore jeans and a canvas jacket, not desert camo or a MOPP suit, or the California surfer gear he seemed to prefer off duty. 

Regret tugged at Nate. Likely his Marines had worried about him, when he pulled his disappearing act. But it would have been stupid to remain with the Corps any longer. He’d been a Captain for a few years, but vampires didn’t age, and it was hard to pretend you were ideal for promotion when you were still getting carded every time you went to a bar. He’d been turned in his mid-twenties, hundreds of years before, and that severely limited how long he could stay in one place, especially with the advancements of the last century in computing and surveillance. 

Slowly, Nate approached, remaining silent. He knew he should turn around and go back inside, go back up to his apartments and wait for Brad to leave. He also knew he would spend as long as he could standing here, staring at Brad. For all that he’d maintained his professionalism while he was Brad’s CO, he’d admired Brad immensely from the start, and that respect had grown into something far stronger during their service together. He didn’t think it was arrogance, either, to presume that Brad had felt more for him than a Team Leader was supposed to feel for their Lieutenant. 

He should go, Nate thought again, and stepped closer. If he had needed to breathe, his exhalation would have brushed Brad’s shoulder. It would take but the smallest of motions to touch Brad. 

Nate nearly trembled, letting Brad’s clean scent fill his nose. 

It would take barely a moment, Nate knew, to claim this man. Brad was strong, and stubborn, but he was no match for a master vampire old enough to walk in sunlight. Nate felt his fangs drop, his attention caught and held by the flutter of Brad’s pulse beneath the thin skin of his neck. He swallowed, knew the sound was audible, and then _moved_, disappearing up into the shadows of the courtyard’s walls. He was on a balcony on the top floor by the time Brad finished turning around. 

“What the _fuck_,” Brad swore softly, looking around, then crouching, touching the barely visible footprints Nate had left in the grass just behind Brad. “What the fuck,” Brad said again, standing up again, and again looking around. He laughed, low and unamused. “I’ve finally cracked,” Brad murmured under his breath. “Fuck.”

Nate licked his fangs, fingers tightening on the balustrade until the rock crumbled in his grasp, and clattered down into the courtyard below. Brad looked up sharply, squinting against the darkness. Nate knew that Brad couldn’t actually see him in the shadows. And yet their eyes met and held. Nate drew in an unnecessary breath, holding still as a statue as the last chips of stone fell away. If his heart still beat, it would have thundered in his breast. 

Time stood still as they stared at one another, the moment stretching. Distantly, a siren wailed. Traffic rushed by. A plane flew low overhead. None of those distractions pulled their gazes from one another. Nate swallowed again, then forced himself to let go of his corporeal form. He dissolved into so much dark mist, and seeped back inside through the minute gaps around the window. He didn’t return to solidity until he was once more hidden away in his room.

* * *

The night before, staying after hours had been an honest mistake. Brad had stood, staring, entranced by a small portrait, poorly lit, of one Cuthbert Nathanial Feakes, hung at the top of the wall in one of the smaller galleries. The man in the painting had borne an uncanny resemblance to his former Captain. Brad had ignored everything else going on in the museum, until finally, the lights went out and he realized that the galleries had been closed to the public hours before.

He’d wandered through the darkened galleries, inspecting the windows and doors. There were magnetic alarms on all those that led to the street, and the idea of tripping those alarms had affronted him. He was a recon marine, he ought to be able to get out undetected. After all, it wasn’t like he was doing anything wrong. It wasn’t his fault the staff had overlooked him when they were closing the premises for the night. 

Tonight though, Brad hid himself away with a purpose. There was something going on here, and it set all his suspicions racing. The portrait that looked so perfectly like Nate. The objects, that fit with his mental profile of his former commanding officer’s tastes - classical ceramics and paintings depicting mythological scenes, racks of antique arms and armour, maps of countries that no longer existed. This place practically screamed Nate Fick, at least to Brad’s eye.

And then there had been the - Brad hesitated to think it, but - the ghost. Someone or something had stood behind him, nearly close enough to touch. Their feet had left prints in the grass, and yet - Brad hadn’t heard the door. He hadn’t heard a window either. Someone had been there. Until they weren’t. He knew he wasn’t crazy. He knew it. But he also didn’t have a single rational explanation for his experience. 

Someone had stood behind him. Brad had heard them swallow, but not felt them breathe. He had turned to confront them, but there had been no one there. But there had been _something_, high up in the shadows where he couldn’t see. Something that had sent stone skittering to the ground. He shivered, waiting until the voices of the other patrons had long ago faded into silence, and the lights had been extinguished in the galleries. 

As dusk faded into true night, Brad began his slow reconnaissance mission. Something strange was going on here, and he wanted to know what. Room by room he went through the museum, clearing the first floor, then the second, until the only rooms left unexplored were those the guide had explained were still used by descendants of the Feakes family as a residence.

Standing in front of the doorway, Brad hesitated. This was someone’s home. It was possible there was an alarm or some type of security system. He had no idea what was beyond the solid looking door. Taking a deep breath, Brad turned the unassuming brass doorknob. The door swung open, and Brad stepped in. 

The apartment was dim, lit only with candles. Little flames flickered inside gleaming glass chimneys, reflecting off mirrored surfaces. The furniture was antique, although Brad couldn’t say much more about it than that. He saw a mirror that looked art deco, a sofa with delicately curved Queen Anne legs. Soft music was playing, he realized - opera, Italian, though he didn’t know the name of the song or the singer.

There was no one in the living area of the apartment, and so Brad cautiously, well aware he was intruding, followed the music deeper inside. He bypassed a thoroughly modern kitchen, and stepped into an Arts and Crafts style bedroom, the bed piled high with colourful quilts. The music was playing from a gramophone in the corner, and from the cardboard record sleeve, the opera was Pucini’s Tosca, recorded at La Scala by Maria Callas. 

A wedge of yellow light spilled out into the bedroom, and Brad swallowed thickly. Beyond the doorway, he could hear the soft splash of a body in a full tub, and a man humming quietly along with the music. He swallowed again, and walked quietly towards the door. Placing his hand on the wood, Brad debated whether he really wanted to do this. That soft voice sounded so familiar, just the right timbre despite that he hadn’t heard it speak a single word. He knew who he wanted to find. 

“Come in Brad,” Nate Fick’s voice called from within, and Brad obeyed, pushing open the door. 

A hundred or more candles burned in the bathroom, on the tile floor and the rim of the massive porcelain claw-foot tub and the counter around the sink and the top of the toilet tank. Brad sank to his knees, staring. He had hoped. He had hoped, but he hadn’t dared think he’d actually find Nate. 

Red-gold hair had lengthened and darkened, while Nate’s always pale skin had paled further, until there was an almost bluish cast to him everywhere save his mouth, which looked obscenely red. His pale eyes were almost colourless in the candlelight, except - except when he turned his head towards Brad, and they caught the light just right, glittering like diamonds and moreover, revealing the tapetum lucidum beneath the lens with a flash of red. Brad swallowed again. Humans didn’t have tapetum lucidum. 

“What are you?” Brad asked, barely above a whisper. Nate smiled, that small unamused quirk of the mouth that Brad had seen so often in Iraq. He’d learned to hate that expression on Nate’s face. 

“No passing this off as a hallucination then?” Nate asked, and Brad shook his head, eyes transfixed by Nate’s plush red lips. 

There was something - something not right about Nate’s teeth. Nate sighed, and laid his hands on the rim of the tub. He stood, and water sluiced down his form. Every muscle on his wiry form was starkly delineated, not an ounce of fat on his body. Brad stared. No scars. He knew that Nate had taken at least a little damage in theater. But his body - he was smooth as the marble statues downstairs. 

In the bedroom, the record clicked, then stopped.

* * *

Nate led Brad back out into the living area, pausing to grab a button down and pull it on, then step into a pair of shorts. He debated how to handle this. He could have prevented this conversation, easily. He could have locked his door, or gone out for the night. But he hadn’t. And so now he had to deal with the consequences. 

He went to the sideboard and poured two tumblers of scotch. He trusted Brad. More than almost anyone else in the world, he trusted Brad. 

Setting the tumblers on the coffee table, Nate detoured to turn on the lights before he sat. He picked up his own scotch, then curled his legs under him, and waited. He knew that in the brighter light, his inhuman attributes would only be more obvious. And he knew that Brad had already determined he was something - unexpected. 

“How - what?” Brad said, then let out a low sound of annoyance before plucking up the scotch and tossing it back like a shot of tequila. Nate made an offended noise in his throat. That was 50 year old Macallan. “You’re really Nate?” Brad asked insistently. “My Nate?” Nate thrilled at the possessive claim, and nodded. 

“It’s really me,” Nate assured. “But I don’t age, and while a Captain who still looks to be at best in his 20s is unusual but excusable, a Major who still gets carded does push the bounds of credulity.” 

“I - how?” Brad asked. “Please sir, spell it out for me.” There was a plea in Brad’s voice that about broke Nate’s heart. He sipped his scotch, then set it aside. 

“I saw on the security footage from yesterday that you found my portrait,” Nate said. “Do you remember when it was painted?” Brad thought a moment, then shook his head. Nate nodded, he hadn’t really expected Brad to remember a trivial detail like that. “It was painted in 1620, on the occasion of my 300th birthday, just before I went to America for the first time,” Nate explained. “I still have a lovely acreage in Virginia I bought upon my arrival there.”

“So you’re - immortal?” Brad asked, trying the word out. 

“Functionally,” Nate agreed. 

“But that’s not what you call yourself.”

“No,” Nate agreed, and let his fangs drop. Brad’s eyes went wide as he caught sight of Nate’s gleaming incisors. 

“Holy shit,” Brad breathed. Nate grinned, making sure to flash a bit of fang. “How - no. Fuck. Holy shit.” Nate’s grin widened. Brad was all but unflappable, and it gave Nate a bit of grim amusement to have him stumbling over his words like this. “Sun - that’s a myth then?”

“Not so much a myth, as - not an issue for a vampire of my age,” Nate allowed. 

“Vampire. Fuck,” Brad breathed, still staring. Nate rose, crossing the room slowly. He stopped an arm’s length from Brad, then slowly stepped closer. “You’re cold,” Brad said, reaching out to take Nate’s hand. 

“I’m dead,” Nate reminded dryly, Brad swallowed, inspecting Nate’s pallid skin. He turned Nate’s hand over, and gently traced the deep blue webwork of veins at Nate’s wrist. Nate managed, just barely, not to shiver at the tenderness conveyed in that touch. 

“In Iraq?” Brad asked. 

“I kept very well fed, for everyone’s safety,” Nate said. “There are hospitals everywhere with expired blood bags, and I can travel quickly when I need to.” Brad blinked, then nodded.

“What now?” Brad asked, finally looking up. Nate quirked a slight smile, his fangs hidden once more. 

“That’s up to you,” Nate said. “It’s kind of stupid for me to trust anyone with a secret like this. But I do trust you Brad, further than I’ve trusted anyone in - a very long time.” 

Brad nodded, then tugged gently at Nate’s hand. Nate shifted, sitting gracefully at Brad’s side. Brad’s hold on Nate’s hand shifted too, so their hands pressed palm to palm, fingers intertwined. Brad raised their joined hands and cut his eyes to the side, holding Nate’s gaze as he pressed a kiss to Nate’s knuckles. 

“I know it’s a lot to ask, giving you this secret,” Nate murmured, and in answer, Brad silently shook his head, then kissed Nate’s hand again. Nate smiled at that, and leaned into Brad’s warm bulk. 

“It’s nothing,” Brad said, wrapping his arm around Nate and pulling him close. Nate smiled. It _wasn’t_ nothing, but he knew what Brad meant, what Brad likely wouldn’t articulate - while the magnitude of secret was beyond what they’d trusted each other with before, they had trusted one another implicitly for years now, and even Nate’s temporary disappearance couldn’t change that.

* * *

“So now what?” Brad asked after a while, reveling in the cool solidity of Nate’s weight against his side. Nate smiled. 

“That’s really up to you, Brad,” Nate said gently. “I know what I’d like to happen, but, as much as you might hate to hear it, I’m much older and much stronger than you, as well as being your former commanding officer-” his voice trailed off, and he shrugged. Brad quirked a little smile at that, then reached up, tracing Nate’s lips with his fingers, then along his cheekbone, the curve of his ear. Nate swallowed audibly, and then Brad was up on his knees, turning so he could kiss Nate on the mouth. 

Nate keened deep in his throat, reaching for Brad and pulling him close. They tumbled down onto the floor, and Brad rolled them so he had Nate pinned, kissing his mouth again, then along his jaw. Nate tilted his chin up, offering his throat. Brad took the hint, dragging his dull teeth along the tendon of Nate’s neck before sucking at the tender skin where his pulse should have been. 

“I have a very nice bed,” Nate offered when Brad pulled away, panting. Brad made a slightly disconcerted noise, and Nate cocked his head in question.

“I hadn’t realized how much I depend on my partner’s autonomic responses,” Brad said ruefully, ghosting fingers over Nate’s silent heart, then down to his soft cock. 

“Ah,” Nate said, and had a feeling that if he’d eaten recently, he might be blushing. “No, nothing in the pipes I’m afraid.” Brad snorted, then leaned in to kiss Nate more gently, carefully. 

“So how will it work then?” Brad asked. 

“Well, I’m more than happy to get fucked Brad,” Nate said, eyebrows raising as that seemed rather obvious to him. 

“Is it even possible?” Brad asked curiously, continuing to fondle Nate’s cock. Nate laughed softly. 

“Very possible, if I’m very well fed,” Nate assured. “But unless you feel like waiting - more than a few hours, that isn’t happening tonight.” 

“Mmm, not that patient tonight,” Brad agreed. “Sorry, sidetracked. You said something about your bed?” Nate scoffed, and stood, taking Brad’s hand and leading him in long strides toward the bedroom. Impatiently, he tugged at the pile of quilts, sending them to the floor in a solid _thud_. Brad let out an amused puff of air, then squeaked as Nate deftly tumbled him into the bed faster than he could track.

Nate pinned Brad easily, despite being the smaller of them. But he wasn’t actually small, Brad was just freakishly tall. And Nate was also much stronger than he looked. He grinned down at Brad, feeling the pulse in Brad’s pinned wrists thunder in his grip. His eyes, he knew, were inhuman-bright, and he grinned, leaning down to nuzzle at Brad’s vulnerable neck. He smelled so good. Nate pressed his mouth against Nate’s pulse, wanting almost beyond reason to bite through that tender skin and take Brad for himself in that most permanent of ways. 

Brad groaned, heart racing. Nate bit him, teasing at his skin without breaking it. Brad nearly whined, wrapping his legs around Nates and grinding up against him. 

“Mmm,” Nate hummed thoughtfully, shifting just slightly so his head rested against Brad’s broad shoulder, so his lips would brush Brad’s skin with every motion of his mouth. He kissed the skin lightly. “Maybe I’ll just ride you,” he mused, “hold you down and use your cock for my pleasure.” Brad’s pulse managed to spike upwards, arousal pheromones swamping the air. Nate chuckled softly, flickering his tongue out to lick the salt off Brad’s skin. “Thought you might like that,” he murmured. “So wonderfully obedient when you feel like it.” Brad _did_ whine at that, a thin, keening sound of desperate need. 

Grinning, Nate took advantage of his ability to move faster than the human eye could track. He stripped in a blurring of limbs, and had Brad naked less than a moment later. He shifted them both easily, so Brad lay flat on his back, Nate straddling his hips. Brad blinked up at him in confusion, his arousal unremitting even in the face of Nate’s inhuman strength and speed. Nate grinned, leaning down over Brad to kiss him while he retrieved the lube. 

“One night, I’ll give you a nice show,” Nate promised, even as he began rubbing lube over his pucker and working himself open. “Tie you to the bed so you can’t distract me, let you watch while I finger myself nice and slow. Get myself stretched so wide, then just sink down on your cock.” 

Brad groaned, low and deep. He didn’t fight Nate’s loose hold on him, didn’t try to escape. 

“Do you think you could get off just like that?” Nate asked curiously. “With me just sitting on your dick? I’d squeeze you so nice and tight, milk you until you begged. Hmmm,” he moaned, slicking two fingers into himself, enjoying the gentle stretch as he worked himself open. “You’re going to feel so good Brad, so fucking hot.” He reached back, gloving Brad’s straining erection. He barely dared touch him, Brad was so eager against his palm, slick already with precome. 

With a grin, Nate shifted, pleasure briefly rendering him speechless as he sank down over Brad. He let out a long, low groan as he impaled himself. Despite his desire, his anticipation, it felt even better than he had imagined. Brad was impossibly hot inside him, fevered with lust and filling him so deeply, so perfectly. 

“So good,” Nate gasped out. He shifted in minute increments, barely moving at all as he acclimated to the heat of it, the stretch. Once he was certain he wouldn’t embarrass himself, Nate began to roll his hips, working himself on Brad’s cock. Brad moaned and tried to arch beneath him, tried to fuck himself deeper into Nate. Nate grinned, eyes glowing as he pinned Brad more securely. “Don’t worry,” Nate said huskily. “I’m going to make you feel - so good.” Brad moaned, tilting back his chin and offering his throat enticingly. Nate chuckled and began to bounce, fucking himself on Brad’s cock, squeezing on the upstroke before letting himself slide back down.

The angle wasn’t quite right, so Nate shifted just a little, crying out as he got everything lined up just the way he liked. With a feral grin he rode Brad, using that big, beautiful cock. Not that Brad was complaining. He was keening softly, occasional pleas for more or incoherent compliments tumbling from his mouth. 

“You’re doing so well Brad,” Nate said gently, and brushed a quick kiss over his mouth. “Feels so good.” Brad’s pleasure wound higher at that. Nate grinned wildly. He’d been fairly positive after his earlier compliments that praise would do that to Brad, but it was nice to have the theory validated. “Fuck,” Nate breathed, because he already knew it pleased Brad to hear him swear. “So big, so hot Brad.” He squeezed and twisted just right, and Brad let out a sound like he’d been sucker punched, coming helplessly. Nate let go at that. Brad’s heat felt so good pushing into him, and he’d always been a hedonist. He let out a sharp cry of his own, and orgasm raced through him like lightning. 

Nate slumped down over Brad, releasing his wrists. Brad had his arms around Nate a moment later, and Nate hummed softly. He licked up the salt of Brad’s sweat, wanting very much to stay exactly where he was, soaking in the heat of Brad’s skin. 

“Want blankets, don’t want to move,” Nate grumped, and Brad let out a breathy laugh, then ducked down to kiss Nate. 

“So don’t move,” Brad murmured, and rolled them. He eased from between Nate’s legs, swallowing audibly as he knelt up. Nate made dissatisfied noise, letting Brad look. He had a pretty good idea what Brad was seeing - he was still bloodlessly pale, save his perpetually bloodstained lips, but his lips would be swollen with their kissing, and his hole stretched and leaking Brad’s come. Brad let out a soft sound of appreciation, then grabbed up some of the quilts and lay down over Nate, letting his warmth seep back under Nate’s skin.

* * *

Brad woke to brilliant sunlight. He sat up, fighting his way from beneath the mound of blankets. On the bed, Nate’s eyes scrunched more tightly closed, and he made a quiet, unhappy noise. Brad licked his lips and swallowed thickly. 

“Why’re you awake, I can feel you thinking too hard,” Nate grumped, looking up blearily. His hair was long enough now to stick up in every direction, and Brad was pretty sure it should be impossible for someone who was around 700 years old to be so ridiculously adorable. He leaned down, stealing a kiss from Nate’s plush mouth. Nate kissed back with a happy little mewl. Evidently kisses were acceptable repayment for waking him before he wished. 

“Can you eat?” Brad asked curiously. He tried to remember if he’d ever seen Nate eating, and couldn’t pull a single memory to mind.

“Can, it’s usually more trouble than it’s worth, liquid diet’s better,” Nate said. He blinked up at Brad, and in the sunlight, his irises were the same crystalline green Brad remembered, although there was an otherworldly sheen there. 

“So will I find coffee in the kitchen?” Brad asked, and Nate nodded, then heaved himself out of bed and padded, naked, into the kitchen. He rummaged through the cabinets and pulled down an old fashioned stovetop percolator. With deft hands, Nate prepared the pot, then got some beans out of the freezer and ground them in an electric mill before dumping them in and putting the pot on a burner.

“It’ll take a moment,” Nate warned, then opened the refrigerator. He pulled out a pouch of blood, checking the label idly. Even from a few steps away, Brad could see the marks designating it for disposal. Brad watched in quiet fascination as Nate produced a saucepan, and filled it with water, then put it on another one of the stove burners and placed the sealed bag of blood in the pot. 

“You can’t just microwave it?” Brad couldn’t help but ask, nodding at the warming blood. Nate shrugged, smiling. 

“Tastes funny,” Nate said, “don’t like it. I’d rather drink it cold than microwaved.” He paused, grinning at Brad. “Makes good slushies when it’s frozen.” Brad pulled a face, and Nate’s grin cracked open even wider. 

“You’re the worst,” Brad said fondly. “Is there any solid food in this place, or will I have to go out?” Nate frowned slightly in consideration, then opened the freezer and stared in. 

“No food,” Nate said. “Once I have my breakfast, I can drink liquids other than blood, so we can go out for brunch.” Brad nodded. He watched as Nate watched their two pots of wake-up juice.

“Does it taste different to you?” Brad asked thoughtfully. He was quite familiar with the copper tang of blood in his mouth after all. It turned his stomach every time. Nate shrugged.

“I know I thought it was pretty disgusting, before,” Nate said. _Before_ carried immense meaning used like this, and Brad could feel its weight between them. “And there are - better and worse tasting varieties - types?” he continued. “What I usually get isn’t exactly gourmet, but it’s the stuff that’s slated for incineration, either expired or unusable for some other reason.” Brad thinks of all the reasons blood might not be viable for medical use, none of them particularly appetizing.

The percolator bubbled and hissed, and Nate adjusted the heat under it. He lifted out the pouch of blood and tested it in his hand. Deciding it was warm enough to be palatable, he got out a pair of mugs. One was put next to the coffee pot, and the other was filled with blood from the pouch. The volume in the pouch filled the large mug almost to the lip, and Nate slurped a bit carefully off the top. 

Brad stared, unable to look away as the deep red blood stained Nate’s crimson mouth and clung to his teeth. It was more than a little surreal, Nate still naked from the night before, standing in the sunlit kitchen and drinking down blood like it was regular old coffee. Nate finished the mug and went back to the fridge, grabbing another unit and dropping it into the still bubbling pot. 

“Hungry?” Brad asked, and Nate leered. 

“If I drink extra now, I should be able to fuck you later,” Nate said mildly, as if there wasn’t blood clinging to his lips. “My metabolism runs pretty fast even if I’m not loading, absorption starts in the mouth.” Brad felt his pulse tick up a bit higher at that, and Nate’s eyes fell to his neck. Fuck. Nate’s red red mouth stretched wider, dark with blood. 

“This is so unfair,” Brad bitched. “You can hear my heart racing from across the room-”

“Further,” Nate corrected. Brad paused, not sure he wanted to know. “I can hear your pulse from about 50 feet away,” Nate said, and Brad swallowed, then nodded. 

“Still not fair,” Brad grumped, and Nate grinned. “And don’t you dare quote David Bowie at me,” Brad warned, and Nate’s grin widened into a gleeful laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm wrennette on tumblr, pillowfort, and dreamwidth, feel free to stop by and say hello


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